Real Estate Agents in 2020 – will you still be here?

Disruptive technology is picking up pace and driving significant change in society and as you are probably aware, the real estate industry is currently seeing technologies that are automating elements of the real estate process.

As we approach the new decade of 2020, real estate agents will be encouraged to provide value. Previously, value has come from agents understanding and communicating market knowledge and opportunities. With technology putting greater information straight into the hand of buyers and sellers, future success for agents will come from managing highly informed clients effectively and having exceptional skills in negotiation and sales.

At the AREC 2015 conference, real estate agents were left to work out what the real estate industry will look like in the year 2020. Focus points included how real estate agents can steer away from the capabilities which technology predict to combat, and the skill set which real estate agents can adapt into their profession.

A personal skill set excelling in communication, negotiation, navigating uncertainty, and innovation are already complementing technology efficiencies and changing the consumer expectation in the real estate industry.

Will combining these favorable characteristics of a real estate agent with real estate qualifications be enough to future-proof your real estate career?

According to Real Estate Business online, real estate agents will be split into one of three categories before the year 2020

1. Category One Agent. Highly trained, technology equipped with sophisticated data marketing. Global markets will be mainstream for these agents, while Asia will become a massive influence. This agent group will have unprecedented capabilities and the cost of selling with these agents will fall, while their profits will soar through efficiency gains.

2. Category Two Agent. These will be traditional agents suffering fast-diminishing resources, using high-cost, low efficiently and increasingly ineffective communication channels. They will be subject to heavy discounting, non-personal skills and lack of ability to deliver results

3. Category Three Agent.The new agent known as the true disrupters. Public, big-scale business like Real Estate Academy Group, Domain, CoreLogic RP Data, Google, Facebook – but probably a name that doesn’t exist today. There are likely to be big movers in real estate from non-traditional players. A big chunk of the existing real estate pie will go this category.

You will be in one of the three categories, but where will your average consumer be? By 2020, consumers will demand more, pay less and be highly controversial. They will be impatient, unreasonable and have high expectation that you today define as ridiculous.

The future looks exciting for agents who want to continually improve their skill set and add higher value to their client database. Will you?

Keep on top of your real estate qualifications at REAA. Specialise as a Sales Professional or Property Manager, increase your rent roll and use it as the inevitable driver to upgrade your registration certificate into a full real estate licence. Learn how to effectively communicate, connect and close with all of your clients.

REAA encourage you to take the real estate industry head on. REAA will be offering a range of value adding courses that can help you take advantage of these future opportunities.  Real estate is changing and provides exciting times for those willing to continually develop and add to their toolkit.

Watch this space as we future-proof your real estate career ready for the year 2020.